Cognative Dissonance

Live not on evil

It was only one generation ago when the horrors of apartheid took place. As we all know, the apartheid laws were clearly unfair,bias,and discriminatory. People were robbed of basic rights, such as education, jobs, security and even marriage. All purely based off of something as random and irrelevant as skin colour. If that's not evil, I don't know what is. Though I do wonder, as much as the people who put the apartheid laws into place are obviously to blame. Aren't the people who did nothing about it just as much to blame? Thousands upon thousand of people just went along with laws simply because they were told to or they were indifferent toward it. Is that not equally as evil? As irish philosopher, Edmund Burke said “The only thing necessary for the evil to triumph is for the good people to do nothing”

According to the english oxford dictionary, Cognitive dissonance is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change. In simple terms, believing in one thing but acting on another, for example: having a negative belief or view on the meat and dairy industry due to its cruel, inhumane methods but later supporting the industry by purchasing and eating meat and other animal products and or by products.

Cognitive dissonance doesn't always only happen with regards to a major issue such as the meat industry, it happens in everyday life. A very prominent and relevant example for us as white, privileged south africans is casual racism and just the fact that it still exists in our community. Not to say that people being racist is due to cognitive dissonance, because sadly there are people out there who genuinely believe what they're saying is okay. Racism goes under the category of cognitive dissonance for all the people laughing at the racist jokes, and supporting it purely by not stopping it much like the people who did nothing to fight for equality during actual apartheid times. As king david students we are often placed in this protective bubble that shield us from the harsh realities of the world, such as racism and sexism. But is that always the case? Are we being shielded or just being silent?

The Cognitive dissonance theory is based on two fundamental assumptions:

Humans are sensitive to inconsistencies between actions and beliefs.

According to the theory, we all recognize, in some way or another when we are acting in a way that is inconsistent with our beliefs/attitudes/opinions. And so In effect, as humans, there is a built in ‘alarm’ that goes off when we notice such an inconsistency, whether we like it or not. For example, if you have a belief that it is wrong to cheat, yet you find yourself cheating on a test, you will notice and be affected by this inconsistency in various ways. We also see this sensitivity show through in cases of hypocrisy and how sensitive the humans are to it.

2. Recognition of inconsistency will cause dissonance, and will motivate an individual to resolve the dissonance.

Once you recognize that you have violated one of your principles, according to this theory, you won’t just say "oh well". You will feel some sort of mental anguish about this. The degree of dissonance, of course, will vary with the importance of your belief/attitude/principle and with the degree of inconsistency between your behavior and this belief. And so in theory, the greater the dissonance the more you will be motivated to resolve it.

Dissonance can resolved in one of three basic ways:

Change beliefs

Perhaps the simplest way to resolve dissonance between actions and beliefs is simply to change your beliefs. You could, of